'We did not play well'
The girls in red and green were coming to terms with that massive 9-0 defeat at the hands of defending champions North Korea in their opener of the AFC U-16 Women's Championship on Monday. And the best possible way was to put up a brave face, which was aplenty as the Bangladesh girls roamed around the hotel lobby cheerfully after a satisfying dinner last night.
“What happened?” one of the journalists asked a group of girls, who were moving along the lobby of Bangsaen Heritage Hotel. The response was unexpectedly smart.
“We lost because we did not play well,” replied a player who was not in the starting eleven.
However, other crucial members of the playing eleven talked to the journalists and admitted that North Korea were a far better side.
“We were not afraid of them at all. We tried to play our natural game but they are way ahead of us physically and their running was also better than us. We simply could not match them. Let's see what we can do in the next matches taking the lessons of this game,” said midfielder Maria Manda, an ethnic footballer from Mymensingh and the only player who ran all over the field in the opening game.
Maria might be an exception as the pressure of a big match did not affect her performance. But it was not the case for the rest.
“Fear had played a role in our result,” admitted striker Sirat Jahan Shopna.
“We have to understand against which opponents we are playing. We were told not to get upset and play our own way despite conceding four goals in the first half and to be honest we tried our way,” added left-back Shamsunnahar.
Defender Masura Parvin had no explanations of the defensive errors but she believes a 9-0 margin was a bit big and that they could have kept the scoreline to a more respectable margin had the backline not made a few mistakes.
Goalkeeper Ruksana Begum was chosen ahead of first-choice goalkeeper Mahmuda Khatun for her height. But the goalkeeper from Sylhet failed to do justice to her height advantage.
“I tried my best,” Ruksana said with tinge of disappointment.
The North Korean girls, who were also enjoying their time at the lobby, appeared very animated when this reporter showed them some of the game's highlights. Five-time scorer Kim Kyong Yong watched herself celebrate after that flying headed goal while Ri Su Gyong, who scored a brace, was also very happy seeing her photos.
Unfortunately though, language remained a barrier, leaving a few questions to be answered.
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